ALTERNATIVE REFRIGERANTS Low GWP


refrigerants take centre stage


Peter Dinnage, technical director at Climalife (IDS Refrigeration) looks at diff erent low-GWP refrigerants now on the market and discusses the diff erent applicactions.


T


here has never been a better time to move to lower GWP refrigerants and there has never been as much choice or availability as the present. The driver for this change is the 2014 EU F-Gas Regulation, which through a series of step-wise reductions will see the amount of CO2 equivalent tonnes that can be placed on the market reduce by 79% over a 15 year period.


A 7% reduction has already occurred, but the real impact of the phase-down will be in just 12 months when the amount of CO2


equivalent tonnes that can be placed on the


equivalent tonnes, such an analogy would allow you to use exactly the same amount of refrigerant as long as you reduced the average GWP of the refrigerants used by 1/3rd. Sounds simple, however diff erent sectors and users are not able to replace the refrigerants they use at the same speed. The scale of the problem has been well documented by trade associations such as AREA, BRA, EPEE, who each highlight the diff erent actions needed and the speed at which they need to happen.


market will drop by 32% (from 2017 to 2018). If nothing changed, this would be the equivalent to everyone being able to buy only two-thirds of the refrigerant they bought this year, however, as the reduction is expressed as CO2


For the last two years there have been calls to stop using high GWP refrigerants such as R-404A in new equipment and during that time the number of compressors approved for lower GWP refrigerants have grown considerably.


Choosing the right low GWP refrigerant


The choice of low GWP refrigerants is growing, so it is a case of selecting the most appropriate one for your application. Very low GWP solutions include carbon dioxide, ammonia, hydrocarbons, HFOs such as R1234yf, R1234ze and R1233zd, whilst R32 is a low GWP HFC. Refrigerant blends with lower


32 December 2016


GWP than the refrigerants they are intended to replace are designed to achieve the right properties that single components cannot.


Some are designed to be non-fl ammable, whilst others have very low fl ammability and are classed as A2L by safety standards. Considerations such as equipment approvals, charge size, fl ammability, location, use, handling and cost will each determine which refrigerant can or will be used. Whichever refrigerant is chosen, there is no one size


fi ts all for every application and many of these are only an option for new equipment and are not for retrofi t of existing equipment.


For direct expansion refrigeration applications there are already a number of non-fl ammable lower GWP solutions available that can replace R404A. With the non-fl ammable refrigerants OpteonXP40 (R449A) and Solstice N40 (R448A), both with a GWP below 1400 (AR4) proving to be good replacements for R404A, the future use of higher GWP replacements for retrofi tting can be expected to decline.


Equipment manufacturers have been quick to approve both R448A and R449A in their ranges and selection and sizing software is available from them. These guides on selection whilst essential for new equipment can also be a useful aid for existing systems when retrofi tting.


For existing equipment the change out of R404A is proving relatively easy for those who are already converting systems, however it’s worth noting that although retrofi t options have similar properties they are not identical in every aspect of operation and care may be needed to operate at optimised conditions and the respective conversion guidelines followed. In transport refrigeration and some small hermetic compressors where an exact match to R404A is required , R452A has found favour as an R404A replacement.


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